Commercially produced dairy and non-dairy creamers are an increasingly popular additive to or ingredient of many of today's food and beverage products. These food additives often improve the taste of food and beverages. But many consumers avoid their use because of concerns about the amount of fat and calories they add to the food or beverage product. Moreover, many of today's commercially produced creamer products lack the desired taste and texture consumers prefer, and many are simply too expensive to gain wide spread approval.
Pure, natural cream is a popular food and drink additive that has excellent taste, texture and mouth feel. But it too suffers from many of the defects mentioned above. Natural cream is very high in fat and calories, and is relatively expensive as well. Thus, while providing the desired sensory experience, there are substantial negative properties of adding natural cream to foods and beverages.
In an effort to produce a creamer product that overcomes the problems of high fat and calorie content formulators have tried a variety of different tactics. Water soluble polymers, such as starch, carboxymethyl cellulose gum, carrageenan gum, and xanthan gum are often used to formulate low fat creamer products. But these ingredients tend to increase viscosity of the product to which they are added. This can result in a slimy or slippery mouth feel that is generally not preferred by consumers. Such additives can also dilute food products, rendering them watery. Moreover, these inactive ingredients, typically bulking agents, suffer from the further deficiency of not being able to withstand the heat and pressure conditions that are part of the food and beverage sterilization and stabilization techniques commonly employed. Thus, while these additives tend to be low fat and affordable, their taste, texture, mouth feel and shelf stability leave much to be desired.
Accordingly there exists a need for improved creamer compositions that are non fat and low calorie and that have improved taste, texture and mouth feel when compared to current commercially produced creamer compositions. These creamer compositions should be shelf stable and approximate the taste and texture of natural cream but without the fat and calories associated with natural cream. Moreover, there exists a need for nonfat creamers that are inexpensive and easy to manufacture. These creamers should be available in both powdered and liquid form, and more preferably they are concentrated such that they provide the benefits discussed without the necessity for unduly large doses. These and other benefits are provided by the present invention.